The present invention relates to an anal incontinence treatment apparatus and method. More specifically, the invention relates to an anal incontinence treatment apparatus and method for surgical application in the body of an anal incontinence patient for restricting the colon or rectum of a patient.
Anal incontinence is a widespread problem. Many different solutions to this problem have been tried. Several kinds of sphincter plastic surgery are used today to remedy anal incontinence. There is a prior manually operated sphincter system in an initial clinical trial phase with the hydraulic sphincter system connected to a reservoir placed in the scrotum. Disadvantage of this system is that hard fibrosis created around the reservoir over time may cause malfunction of pumping components. Thus, the created fibrosis will sooner or later become a hard fibrotic layer which may make it difficult to pump the reservoir. Yet a further disadvantage is that the use of hydraulic fluid always entails a risk of fluid leaking from the prosthetis. Furthermore, it is a rather complicated task to mechanically manually pump the reservoir when defaecation is needed. U.S. Pat. No. 5,593,443 discloses hydraulic anal sphincter under both reflex and voluntary control. An inflatable artificial sphincter with the pump system in scrotum is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,222,377.